Puzzles
by Aingingein
Summary: When a man comes to the clinic with a backache, House dismisses him. But he soon returns with more severe symptoms, and when House's team investigates, a case that once puzzled them fills them with fear. Rated T for medical gore


**Here is the introduction to my story. The other chapters will be longer, although I am notorious for writing short chapters. Kudos for the first person who gets the disease right! Good luck... and enjoy!**

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Sam Reston waited in the clinic at Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital. He was a nondescript kind of man: a Supercuts haircut, brown hair, mild stubble. His eyes were a color that nobody remembered, and his skin was the color of a crayon called Skin. He wore plain Levi's and an olive-green t-shirt. He was the kind of person who you have a pleasant conversation with, and then forget the moment you leave the room. Sam rubbed his temples. The annoying bustle of the hospital was starting to give him a headache. He had been waiting for nearly two hours and was thinking about leaving, when the nurse called, "Reston, Sam? Exam Room Two, please, with Dr. House."

Sam walked into the exam room and was confused with what he saw. Instead of seeing a kindly old doctor with a white lab coat, he saw a scruffy man in his mid-forties, wearing a t-shirt that said "I really wish I weren't here right now." Sam checked the door again to make sure he was in the right room, and then turned to the man. "Um, are you Dr. House?" he asked skeptically.

"Fortunately for you, yes. What seems to be your problem?" House asked in a gruff voice, paying more attention to his Rubik's cube than he was to his patient.

"Okay, well," started Stan, wondering if this guy was a real doctor, "I've been having this backache for a day or two now. It hurts like hell."

"That is terribly tragic," House said, and went back to his Rubik's cube.

"Please," Sam insisted, "it hurts."

House looked at his watch. "You slouch when you're on your computer." Sam looked at him quizzically, so House explained. "You're eyes are red in the corners. You've either been staying up late watching TV or you're on your computer into the wee hours of the morning. Since your neck is craned forward like a techie, I'm guessing it's the latter." House grabbed his cane and walked out the door. He poked his head back into the room and added, "Pick up some asprin on your way home," and left. Sam sighed and gritted his teeth. He'd waited for two hours for this? He didn't even own a computer. He passed by the mirror on the way out the door, and made a mental note to try to get some sleep tonight. He had circles under his eyes.

()()()()

Three days later, House walked into the diagnostics room and looked pityingly down on his ducklings. Foreman, Cameron, and Chase were extremely bored. That was hardly unexpected, seeing as the team hadn't had a single case last week. It was now Monday, and Cameron was finished typing up House's overdue paperwork for Cuddy, Foreman was done writing and re-writing employee reviews, and Chase was tired of the crosswords in The New Yorker.

"Poor, poor little interns." House chuckled.

"Residents," Foreman corrected. "And I know that I don't speak for the others here, but I know I'm fed up with you. You haven't taken a case in over a week. If you keep this fight going with Cuddy, you're going to kill someone, if you haven't already by not taking their case. You have your own personal relationships with people, but dragging other people--" Without a single word, House turned around and walked out the door and down to the clinic on the first floor. Cuddy had promised that, if he did his clinic duty for two hours every day, she would repair his desk that he had broke during a heated argument with her. Since he had nothing else to do, and didn't want to spring for a new desk (or, rather, con Wilson into buying him a new desk,) he decided he could deal with a couple of idiots every day.

House tossed his mixed up Rubik's cube from one hand to the other, and didn't look up when he heard the door open and close. He didn't say anything, and neither did the patient. So he looked up. The patient looked familiar, but then again, he had a very "familiar" sort of appearance. Then House remembered: Sam Reston, the clinic patient with a backache. He didn't look so unremarkable now: dark shadows and bloodshot eyes, as though he hadn't slept. A red rash that, though light on his face, deepened as it went down his neck. "You're back? Are you a person or a boomerang?" he asked sarcastically.

Sam chuckled weakly. "How are you, Doctor House?" House didn't answer. "Please help me. Its not my back anymore."

"So there's no reason for us to be talking and we can all go home," House interrupted.

"No. It's all of me. It hurts to bend my knees and my elbows. My muscles ache when I use them, like I've pulled them from working out, but I haven't done any strenuous exercise in a while. My head, too. I feel like something is trying to… claw it's way out of my head through my eyes."

"Fever?" House asked. Sam gestured at the many layers of clothing he was wearing, despite the fact that it was the middle of August. "Ah." This sounded like malaria.

"Been out of the country recently?" House asked, not bothering to read the file.

"Came back from Sudan ten days ago. I was building houses in Western Equatoria." It was about the right timeframe for malaria if he had been exposed. But Sam added, "I got vaccinated before I went, and tested the day before I left. Do you think it's possible that I caught it at the airport?" House thought for a second. The general incubation period for malaria is one to three weeks. It could be malaria, although some of the symptoms didn't match up quite right. It was an anomaly. House smiled. His Rubik's cube could wait. He had found a better puzzle.


End file.
